Engineers and scientists attempt to intervene in the Earth's geochemical cycles. Because it seems that efforts to reduce CO2 emissions will not be enough to avoid irreversible climate change. But does geoengineering offer a real solution? Or is it just human pride?

Some scientists believe we need to explore radical, even dangerous, technologies so that we can lower the Earth's temperature through geoengineering in the near future.
Science journalist Ingolf Baur explores the feasibility and risks of large geoengineering projects. His trip takes him to meet scientists in Switzerland, Iceland, the United States and Peru. Along the way, he encounters two very different strategies: The first involves harvesting climate-damaging CO2 from the atmosphere and sinking it underground or into the deep sea. The other, and more controversial strategy, seeks to develop techniques to dim sunlight.

Global warming is causing entire mountain ridges to break apart, such as the Moosfluh above the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland. Such dramatic changes could increase pressure for geoengineering.
Its most prominent supporter is David Keith of Harvard University in the United States. He designed experiments to probe the possibilities of “solar geoengineering”. His idea is that fleets of aircraft dump millions of tons of sulfur into the stratosphere each year, where it should reflect some of the incoming sunlight back into space. As bold as this method may seem, it is actually no different from what happens during volcanic eruptions.

Or could we still succeed in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere? In Iceland, a group of researchers are using a special process to filter carbon dioxide from the air and pump it 2,000 meters deep into basalt rock. The surprise: after a few months, the CO2 already reacts chemically and turns into stone, which makes it permanently harmless. The amounts are still far too small, but it shows that, as controversial and risky as some geoengineering methods may be, we may ultimately need technologies to avoid or at least mitigate the effects of climate collapse .

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